Media Selection in Knowledge Transfer

Abstract

Managing knowledge transfer is a complex issue: when firms attempt to accelerate knowledge transfer at a rational cost, there is often a byproduct of knowledge spillover which harms the firms' competitive advantages. As the channel of knowledge transfer, media play a vital role for the success of knowledge transfer. However, the extant literature offers neither comprehensive framework nor a decision method to guide firms' media selection in knowledge transfer. This article develops a framework of media selection from the perspectives of performance, cost, and risk of knowledge spillover, and proposes a decision model of media selection in knowledge transfer based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Finally, this article applies the model to a case study to verify its effectiveness in practice. The framework is helpful to guide firms' media selection, and the decision model is valuable to facilitate firms' media selection in big knowledge transfer projects.